[startingup]

I think the real debate here is that value in the internet is moving relentlessly away from content producers towards content aggregators. Even a big newspaper site doesn't have the diversity that you find in an aggregator like Google News; likewise, no tech blog can compete with the diversity of news in Hacker News. I visit TechMeme and Hacker News far more than I visit any single blog, for example. TechMeme makes far more money than any professional tech blogger too.

Aggregators tend to build much more value to themselves quickly by riding on other people's content. Yet, aggregators are worth nothing without the underlying content. This irks many content producers, particularly the professional ones whose output accounts of the bulk of the traffic that aggregators end up sending. This trend of professionally produced content accounting for the bulk of the links is evident even in Hacker News.

If these trends continue, giant aggregators could end up controlling much of the content. Yahoo already produces a lot of content, and licenses content for Yahoo News (which is fitting considering Yahoo News has more traffic than any news site in the world). Google News, Digg etc. could follow.

This is the future I suspect Murdoch does not like, because it appears from his perspective to be third parties building value out of his content, without compensating him. Legally, I am not sure he has a claim - if there is a lawsuit on this, it will reach the Supreme Court, that's for sure.

[easyfrag]

Exactly. I don't think Murdoch is actually upset that Google drives people to his sites, what bugs him is that they go to Google first.

When you read a story in a newspaper, you almost automatically consume other content in that paper, including ads. Why pick up another paper to read more news when it's already in your hands? To a lesser extent the same is true for cable news, you watch a brief segment and you are bombarded with "coming up next" teasers and flashy graphics, pretty anchors, etc., all designed to keep you on that channel (watching ads).

The web is way less sticky than even television, sure you could flip channels but you lose context, and you might have to keep flipping to find something interesting, broadcast is a push medium. Contrast this with the web page: what is the easiest thing to do after reading the linked story? Search around the new site (that you may not be familiar with) or hit the back button and resume what you were doing: Pulling down stories you want to read, instead of waiting to see if something interesting comes up.

I think Murdoch gets the power of the aggregator, I don't think he understands that he has always pushed content to consumers. (Yes a lot of work goes into creating a brand that attracts these consumers to the paper/network but once they are there they have content pushed to them.) The web is a pull medium.

Billions were spent on the "portal wars" of the 90's, and everyone who participated lost to a page with a text box and 2 buttons.

[ja2ke]

You might be a fantastic writer, but without a good editor, and (in the case of one-offs like books) probably a good publisher, nobody will see it, or know it.

The analogy of editor/publisher to aggregators/search engines seems pretty fair. If nobody deems your content worth aggregating to HN, maybe it isn't? People who read HN trust it the same way I imagine people who have read the NY Times or National Geographic their whole life trust it.

When the web first started appearing as a news and editorial destination, it seems that people were quick to proclaim the death of curated content, because with infinite space and no need for physical resources, the constraints of binding your words together in 80 stapled pages of dead tree were history -- everything can just link to everything else, and when that fails, search! Turns out that the problem was never that a magazine could only be so many pages long, but that people only have so much time to be bothered with content they want to see.

Online the content and the editorial dept don't need to share a building -- in some cases its probably still better if they do, and in others its probably better that they're se separate as possible. I don't think there's any less value on content, or on editorial curation of what content gets in front of people. Sites like HN, Digg, Amazon and Hulu are popular destinations because they offer tailored and curated gateways to content people want. The curators have always been the bosses of the content creators, but now that they don't have to live under the same roof -- now that anyone can curate anyone else's content, as long as their curation/editorial skills are deemed good enough by the public to get them enough readers/viewers -- the balance of power has gone a bit wacky.

When Hulu's CEO called the TV networks "content providers" in that well-linked blog post a little whie back, few people batted an eye, but that was a huge slap in the face to those guys. If you're just the content provider, that means, on the org chart of the consumable content world, that Hulu is your boss -- they're your editor, your publisher, curating your content and choosing what lives and what dies. Hulu is supposed to be their dorky portal for cheapskate college students and bored secretaries! Why are they calling the shots now??

It's tiring to see people like Murdoch bellowing at top volume about their content being stolen when the content is the one thing people are still clamoring to consume by any means necessary. It's the editor's desk that's under attack and that's what's really freaking them out.